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Article published In:
Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 17:2 (2019) ► pp.497–510

Losing your footing, losing your morality

The embodied effect of physical slant on moral judgment

| Southwest University
| Zhongnan University of Economics and Law

What influences how people render their moral judgment? Focusing specifically on the conceptual metaphors “moral is upright” and “immoral is tilted”, we sought to investigate whether physical slant can influence people’s harsh moral judgment. Experiment 1 induced physical slant by having participants complete the questionnaire at a tilt table. We observed a significant effect with participants who experienced physical slant rendering a less severe moral judgment than did those who wrote their responses at a level table. Using a new manipulation of physical slant and a larger, more diverse sample, Experiment 2 asked participants to complete the questionnaires with rotated text or normal text. We observed a difference between the two groups: compared to participants who read the normal text, those with a visual experience of slant lessened the severity of their moral judgments. Taken together, the results showed that the consequence of tilted experience exerts downstream effects on moral reasoning, which suggests that incidental bodily experience affects how people render their decisions.

Keywords: embodiment, moral judgment, physical slant, conceptual metaphor, human conceptualization
Article outline
  • 1.Conceptual background
  • 2.Experiment 1
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Materials and procedure
    • 2.3Results and discussion
  • 3.Experiment 2
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials and procedure
    • 3.3Results and discussion
  • 4.Generral discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 10 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00044.li
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